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ICSU and the Social Sciences 13 Enhancing Involvement of the Social Sciences in ICSU ICSU - International Council for Science Founded in 1931, the International Council for Science (ICSU) is a non-governmental organization with a global membership of national scientific bodies (114 Members, representing 134 countries) and international Scientific Unions (29 Members). The Council is frequently called upon to speak on behalf of the global scientific community and to act as an advisor in matters ranging from scientific conduct to the environment. ICSU’s activities focus on three areas: planning and coordinating research; science for policy; and strengthening the Universality of Science. Suggested citation: International Council for Science (2008) Enhancing Involvement of the Social Sciences in ICSU © ICSU 2008 Enhancing Involvement of the Social Sciences in ICSU Prepared for the 29th General Assembly October 2008 Enhancing Involvement of the Social Sciences in ICSU october 2008 Contents 1. Introduction 5 2. The Development of Science - from Disciplinary to Interdisciplinary 6 3. Development of Interdisciplinarity in ICSU 7 4. Current ICSU Membership and Interactions with the Social Sciences 8 5. The Case for more Social Sciences in ICSU 9 5.1 ICSU's Vision and Mission 9 5.2 The ICSU Strategic Plan 2006-2011 9 6. Steps to Increase Social Sciences in ICSU 10 6.1 Adding More Social Scientists to ICSU Committees 10 6.2 Stimulating More Social Science Unions to Join ICSU 10 7. Some Lingering Concerns 11 8. Ways Forward 11 9. Recommendations 12 Annex 1: ICSU and the Social Sciences 13 Annex 2: Social Sciences, ICSU and UNESCO 18 3 Enhancing Involvement of the Social Sciences in ICSU october 2008 Enhancing the Involvement of the Social Sciences in ICSU 1. Introduction At the ICSU 28th General Assembly (2005) it was recommended that the Executive Board be mandated to explo- re and identify the most appropriate mechanisms for securing the interaction and added value of the social scien- ces in ICSU’s scientific work; and asked to report back on its findings and recommendations at the next General Assembly in 2008. This was after the Ad hoc Committee on Membership Issues found that with regard to the representation of disciplines within ICSU, the following areas warranted further consideration: Social sciences (Economics, Law, Demography, Sociology) and Health (Clinical epidemiology, Clinical research). Specifically, the Executive Board was mandated to explore and identify the most appropriate mechanisms for securing the inter- action and added value of the social sciences in ICSU’s scientific work. The Executive Board charged ICSU’s Committee on Scientific Planning and Review (CSPR) to draft a response to this resolution that the Executive Board could present to the GA in Maputo, Mozambique. At its September 2006 meeting, CSPR discussed options for strengthening involvement of social sciences in ICSU, such as adding Member Unions in social science disciplines not yet represented, more fully involving International Social Science Council (ISSC) as institutional partner in ICSU activities, and continuing in an ad hoc fashion to seek names of scientists from disciplines not represented by the current ICSU Scientific Unions. CSPR decided to focus a major part of its February 2007 meeting on this topic and to commission background papers from two groups of CSPR Members and the Secretariat. In addition, Professor Gudmund Hernes, President of ISSC, and Dr. Heide Hackmann, ISSC Secretary-General, were invited to participate. At the meeting in February 2007, CSPR engaged in an in depth discussion. Dr. Hackmann and Professor Hernes gave presentations on their mandate to reform the ISSC and their aspirations for the next three years. Based on this discussion, CSPR submitted to the Executive Board for consideration a suite of views and ideas to enable the Executive Board to provide further guidance to the CSPR before it made final recommendations to the Executive Board. The five options could be considered singly, as some are mutually exclusive, or in various combinations. 1. ICSU should take maximum advantage of the positive changes that are taking place in the ISSC and assist in any appropriate way to ensure success in the revitalisation of the ISSC. 2. ICSU could consider encouraging a small number of ISSC Unions and Associations which are conside- red key to the implementation of the ICSU Strategic Plan to apply for ICSU membership. Included in this group could be International Political Science Association, International Sociological Association and the International Union for the Study of Population. 3. Alternatively, ICSU could enlist the support of the three bodies mentioned above in the implementation of the ICSU Strategic Plan without encouraging them to apply for ICSU membership. A close working relationship between ICSU and these bodies would enable ICSU to know the bodies better, and vice versa, and assist ICSU to determine what an appropriate long term relationship with these would be. 4. ICSU could consider it sufficient to simply continue working with ISSC and its key Unions and Associations in an ad hoc manner to improve ICSU’s ability to identify the best Social Science resear- chers and scholars who can assist in the implementation of the ICSU Strategic Plan. 5. ICSU could take greater advantage of the experiences of those of its National Members whose manda- te includes Social Sciences and Humanities in mobilising good social sciences input into its activities. At its meeting in September 2007, the CSPR decided to consult with ICSU Members based on the background document prepared for its previous meeting. ICSU Members were requested to provide CSPR with succinct and constructive comments on the ideas in these documents and to submit new perspectives and ideas not already mentioned. The response was very poor and only two National Members a none of the Unions provided sub- stantive comments out of a total response of five National Members and one Scientific Union. 5 Enhancing the Involvement of the Social Sciences in ICSU 2. The Development of Science – from Disciplinary to Interdisciplinary As pointed out by the ICSU National Member of Tanzania in its review of the draft version of this document, the Concise Oxford English Dictionary gives two definitions of science: The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. A systematically organized body of knowledge on any one subject. This inclusive interpretation of science is also used by UNESCO (the United National Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization), which includes sectors of Natural Sciences as well as Social Sciences and the Humanities, thus emphasizing the capital S in its name as all embracing. Science has developed exponentially and it is no longer possible to have a Renaissance scientist trying to cover all aspects of knowledge. It is not even possible to have a professor of medicine developing a system for natural classification as did Carolus Linnaeus 250 years ago. We witness an even great specialization and the frontiers of scientific understanding are changing, while the scientific discipline is in a flux. The scientific congresses of ICSU Unions have more and more parallel sessions, often engaging scientists from other disciplines. Such ses- sions attract great interest, but the plenary sessions that try to cover a very wide field of the discipline and neigh- bouring disciplines find it increasingly difficult to attract a large audience. In 1956, the Chancellor of the University of Chicago complained about the eroding frontiers between discipli- nes: ‘It is alarming to note that history moves into the humanities, that economics becomes mathematics, that anthropology and psychology ally themselves with biology, and that geography is at home with the physical sciences’. (Kimpton, L. A. 1956. The Social Sciences Today. In: White. L. (ed.) The State of the Social Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; as cited by Apter, D. E. 2007. An Approach to Interdisciplinarity. Paris: ISSC). Today most of the exciting sciences are at the borders between disciplines; both within natural sciences and between natural and social sciences. The scientific world has changed. Biochemistry is no longer a multidisciplinary science between biology and chemistry; it is a recognized discipli- ne in itself with its own ICSU Scientific Union. Thus, the scientific disciplines are fragmenting and combining. Ecological economics is not yet a generally defined discipline, but it is an area of exciting scientific advances. Many such hybrid specialities recognize their genealogical roots: political economy, bio-geography, social ecolo- gy, etc. In other cases, new disciplines re-formed; cognitive science branched out from psychology. When it comes to interdisciplinarity, based on the disciplinary strengths of the Scientific Unions, one must look at the definition of terms such as interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, which are often used interchangeably. The following definitions are based on publications by Collins (Bioscience 52(1), 75, 2002)) and Stokols et al. (Nicotine and Tobacco Research, 5, S21, 2003). Discipline: a body of knowledge or branch of learning characterized by an accepted content and learning. Cross-disciplinary Research: Research effort that involve investigators drawn from different disciplines. This term refers to all types of discipline-crossing
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